Fuck. Not Otis’s biological father.
I slap his face again and manage to reclaim his attention…until an opponent finds the pair of us on the floor and decides he’s going to yank Carter up.
He fails miserably—Carter is three times the size of this man.
So, he slips his gun instead.
“No,” a second opponent interjects. “Don’t waste your bullets. He’ll be dead shortly.” He removes his mask to flash me a wink.
I take out my gun and shoot the bastard dead in the eye before he has time to open it again. Blood splatters, landing on my face. The metallic taste of it combines with the salty taste of my own sweat.
I lick my lips—this is exactly what violence is supposed to taste like.
“Carter?” screams a female voice. One that belongs to Carmen. Her broken cadence almost ruins me.
“Sit tight,” I say to Carter before darting away in the direction of her voice.
On route to the shipping container, I grab Otis and fling the crying boy over my shoulder, hoping to avoid the fate that has taken Carter.
I shoot into the shipping container and lock eyes with her.
And that’s when the real fun begins.
“Take Otis and the others. Get the hell out of here!” she screams.
“Carmen—”
“Don’t argue with me. Conrad isn’t gonna stop. It’s me he wants. Otis was just an extra.”
“An extra?”
“I need you to go. Before he kills you all and leaves Otis without his fathers.”
“He needs his mother, Carmen.”
The hurt is all over her face, dampening features I once remember being radiant. “He doesn’t. I’m gonna ruin him.”
“If you think you can let that manipulative cunt get into your head, you’ve already let him win.”
She doesn’t get to decide if she wants to stay here or not. I take the knife from under my belt and saw away the zip ties, one at a time until she falls flush into my arms.
She weighs less than a feather and she’s not even been here for an hour. A gash is on her cheek, a streak of blood dripping down from her eyebrow. One of them has been cut open. Intentional or not, it doesn’t matter. Conrad will take her and ruin her.
And if he does that, I head back to Monterey and set sail.
Because she’s the only thing here that makes me want to stay.
I kiss her chastely on the temple and throw her over my shoulder, somehow managing to hold both Carmen and Otis. It’s getting quieter outside, and that unsettles me.
If Carter looked like he was hanging onto life by a thread before, I dread to think what state he’s in now.
“Please,” she begs. I ignore her request to set her back down—she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s saying. “You don’t understand. I’m the same as her. I’ll ruin him. And he’ll keep coming back.”
Some names would be nice. But I think she’s past the point of speaking in full sentences.
We exit the shipping container—Otis in one arm, Carmen slumped over the other. The warehouse is no longer teeming with men like before. Most of them are dead. It’s a pleasant sight for me, but a terrible one for the infant on my arm.
I bring him to my chest, his face tucked into me. But the damage has already been done. It’s gonna take a lifetime to heal this child.
